Zdeněk Mácal (Czech pronunciation: [maːtsal]) (born 8 January 1936, Brno, Czechoslovakia) is a Czech conductor.
Mácal began violin lessons with his father at age four. He later attended the Brno Conservatory and the Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts, where he graduated in 1960 with top honors. He became principal conductor of the Prague Symphony Orchestra and conducted both symphonic concerts and operas. He won the 1965 International Conducting Competition in Besançon, France, and the 1966 Dmitri Mitropoulos Competition in New York, under the direction of Leonard Bernstein. Leaving behind a promising career in Czechoslovakia, he left the country after the Soviet-led invasion of 1968 crushed the Prague Spring, finding work first at the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne, followed by the Radio Orchestra of Hanover.
Mácal made his American debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1972. He served as Artistic Advisor of the San Antonio Symphony and principal conductor of Chicago's Grant Park Music Festival. Mácal became music director of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra in 1986. He took that orchestra on a critically acclaimed East Coast tour in 1989, which included performances at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. and Carnegie Hall in New York. He made a very popular recording of Má Vlast by Bedřich Smetana for Telarc Records in Uihlein Hall in Milwaukee on 10–11 November 1991. During his tenure in Milwaukee, the orchestra's concerts were broadcast on more than 300 radio stations.[1]
Mácal conducted the Sydney Symphony during the 1986-1987 season, leaving after some labor problems.
Mácal left Milwaukee to become Music Director of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra (NJSO) in September 1993. Delos International recorded Antonín Dvořák's Stabat Mater in the fall of 1994. A 23 October 1995, recording session in the State Theatre in New Brunswick, New Jersey was devoted to Dolby Surround recordings of the Symphony No. 2 in C minor and the suite from the ballet The Red Poppy by Reinhold Moritzovich Glière.[2] He concluded his NJSO tenure in 2002 and took on an emeritus title with the orchestra subsequently.[3]
In 2003, Mácal was appointed chief conductor of the Czech Philharmonic. His contract with the orchestra was through 2008, but he suddenly resigned in September 2007.[4]
In 1977, Mácal made his own orchestral arrangement of Modest Mussorgsky's piano suite Pictures at an Exhibition. In 2006, Mácal made a brief appearance in the Japanese drama series Nodame Cantabile, based on the manga by Tomoko Ninomiya, during scenes shot in Prague. He played the main character's childhood mentor, conductor Sebastiano Vieira, a role he recently returned to for the two special episodes filmed in 2007 and broadcast on 4th and 5 January 2008.
| Preceded by Christoph von Dohnányi |
Chief Conductor, WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne 1970-1974 |
Succeeded by Hiroshi Wakasugi |
| Preceded by Lukas Foss |
Music Director, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra 1986-1995 |
Succeeded by Andreas Delfs |
| Preceded by Hugh Wolff |
Music Director, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra 1993-2002 |
Succeeded by Neeme Järvi |
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